I can't believe it has been nearly three months since my last post. It has been a very busy fall and somehow it really got away from me. So, let me see if I can remember most of what has happened.
When last we met, fall lambing was just beginning. We ended up having 13 ewes lamb, one of them over at the other farm, and most of them in the pasture with no assistance. The 'no assistance' part is great. The 'in the pasture' part, not so much. The weather started out really mild, but a few days into lambing we had one night of cold rain and chilly temps. The next morning we finally were able to get the sheep moved into the barn, which we had just gotten cleaned out the day before. There was one little lamb who apparently hadn't been getting much milk from his mama (despite having suckled frequently in the two days since he was born). He was shivering and as good as dead by all accounts. There was another lamb born that morning who needed some attention to be sure he got colostrum. So, the shivering, cold lamb was placed in a fluffy nest of straw to see if that would help. By the time we got all the ewes and lambs situated and the newborn fed the chilled lamb was no better. I dried him off, wrapped him up and held him in my lap trying to get some kind of response from him and get a little milk in his belly. I was able to tube-feed some milk to him, but he was very lethargic. There is no electricity at the barn, so I decided the best place for him was at the house where he could get warmed up and I could keep a close eye on him. So we tucked him in between us on the four wheeler and brought him to the house. I wrapped him in towels and put him in the bathtub. About an hour later he was a little perkier. I gave him some more milk and fashioned a lamb coat out of an old hunting sock. He steadily improved as he got warmed up, and I am happy to report that he made a full recovery. We did lose three of the lambs, so we are down to 10, but they are doing very well. All were singles and none were so large that they caused difficulties for the ewes. All in all a decent first attempt at fall lambing. We plan to try again next fall, and will be adding the shot of PG-600 to our CIDR protocol. It seems like that helps. We've heard of one guy who got 100% of his ewes bred with lutalyse, CIDR, and PG-600. I will have to do some research on this because it doesn't seem right to me that you would need lutalyse in ewes that aren't cycling.
Now, let me see if I can find a few photos from fall lambing and I'll continue the update another day.
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| The lamb that would later end up in the bathtub. |
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| How can you not fall in love with such cuties? |
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| Nestled in his warm tub and feeling much better after a little TLC. |
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| Fall lambs at about 1 month of age. |
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| Fall lambs at about 2 months of age. |
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